Saturday, 28 April 2012

So our great British weather has put a dampener, that is to say a postponement, on my hols :( But I don't much fancy travelling about the country in this downpour, so will be doing it in a couple of weeks instead...however that just gives me more time to make some extra washi tape YAY! But before I get onto that the first tutorial for this page is going to be making this:

It's a washi tape storage book, ready to hold all your lovely tapes, but also works great for ribbons/fibres/laces etc

inside

I must say this is one of my favvvvvvvvvvvvvourite projects for a while, I absolutely love it, here's the tutorial as to how to create the pieces & bind it:

Okay now I can get onto the stuff you put inside eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee (yes I'm excited about this project too lol): Homemade Washi Tapes:

Super quick, super easy, here's the tutorial (also with another homemade storage system as you can see):

Because I was still planning on going away when I made this tutorial all of the designs I made in this video were SUPER quickly thrown together, rather than more elaborate creations I may have done. Who knows now I have some time to play I may come up with more complex techniques to do another tut in the future.

Now I am off for a little rest. Although I'm not physically going anywhere any more I still feel I need a little break from everything in life, as well as online, so I'm going to go offline now so as to chill with my time off. I'll see you when I'm properly refrigerated, much love to all Jennibellie xxx

AFTER NOTE: I've had a question about the 'stickiness' of the washi tape but cannot answer directly to that person as they are marked Anonymous, so will note all that I can about the 'sticky' issue here. The surface I create the washi tape on is a non-stick craft mat, you can also use wax paper, this will allow the tape to be lifted with minimum 'stickiness' being removed and you can also store it on these items also. The nature of masking tape means it should never lift off anything it is placed on top of but I recommend buying porous tape (I call in non-waxy in the video) so anything you add to it will sink in, rather than sitting on the surface, therefore ensuring your design stays put. Happy crafting :)

Friday, 27 April 2012

A post of silly fun tutorials today. I let my inner teenager out on the rampage a little earlier this week, first with these funky beaded nails:

As a teenager I would spend hours elaborately painting my long talons with all forms of nail art - and heaven forbid if one should get broken lol. But now that is an every couple of day occurrence with my life, and hobby, being so hands on so I have to admit it was nice to play again.

Second I revisited the old skool style of lettering that I have absolutely fallen in love with again for my journals and zines.

Isn't it strange how you abandon what you learn naturally while growing up because it wasn't 'correct', or 'perfect', only to find that's what you love about it when you rediscover it as an adult? That's exactly my story with art too in a nutshell - abandoned it as a teen, thinking I was no good at it, only to understand later that being 'good' was never the point at all! The freedom and pleasure it derives, I now realise, are most important to me.Thanks for visiting, I'll be back tomorrow with a continuation of fun tuts but back in a more crafty fashion lolMuch love Jennibellie xxx

Thursday, 26 April 2012

Today is day 2 of my 4 daily posts showing the videos I have been working on lately before I'm off on hols. This post is all about ugly pages, and personally why they are as important to me, if not more so, than the pretty ones. Journaling to me is therapy, and therapy is not always a pretty process - so why should the end results be? For me when I started art journaling it seemed the most difficult thing in the world to make a page I liked. And talking to other artists online it seems to be the most common experience for beginners that deflates their confidence. So I created my version of a Q&A/Vlog type of video in the hopes of helping boost that esteem & love for those poor ugly pages:

This is the first of a new video/vlogging series where I will tackle the issues we face as artists. They are titled 'Jennibellie on...' because I want to make it clear they are MY OWN personal experiences and opinions, not necessarily 'standard' or 'true' (if there is such a thing in these matters?). They may be completely at odds with what is best for you or your art, in which case I, of course, want you to ignore me completely. I am just giving my two cents to those questions I get asked about & feel I can address. Here are some of my 'ugly' pages that I show in the video:

From the responses I've had from the video I understand not everybody considers these ugly pages, but to me when I created them I really, really did not like them. It's the same thing as if you showed me the pages you consider ugly - I would most likely like them too, it's a personal thing.

Thanks for reading, tomorrows post is going to be two rather random but awesomely fun tutorials. Much love Jennibellie xxx

Wednesday, 25 April 2012

for my hols! Not that it's a long or exciting one, (still in the UK :( ) but I think it's a much needed one. A week divided between staying with friends and then family so I knocked together this small junk journal:

Made out of a tissue box:

And filled with leftover torn papers for interest:

And I'll be taking my travel kit, the contents of which can be found here:

It has acrylics, watercolours, crayons, pens, collage...but I think I'm going to add a little pot of embellishments too, like I did with my last travel journal.

So I've been VERY busy making videos, I have a bug, I know it lol and will post them on here before I leave, or you can check them out at my channel. Some really fun tutorials that I got so excited about I just had to make them, even though I had nearly no time for it lol but when the British get a bee in their bonnet I believe we're terrible till we actually do it...so I did it :)

Thursday, 19 April 2012

I haven't been here for a week or so, I had a feeling I wouldn't while doing my last post as I had had a very strange week & was left feeling a little fragile...so I did as many of my blogging buddies have told me in the past and took a little time for me. I haven't done *too* much art

though obviously I've still done a little (a FULL week plus without paint??? = Torture!!) This is just a quick acrylic slap-dash with a little black pen on top for definition

but instead I've been spending time returning to the *regular* kind of journaling (that old school version - written). The last entry my diary below had gotten was three years ago, and a completely different person began writing in it again.

The artwork on the diary reads 'The Soul Would Have No Rainbow if the Eyes had no Tears'

However, following my belief that you should always create a positive out of a negative, I took that huge amount of feeling and made the most personal video I have ever created. It contains a tutorial for creating an art journal page with techniques that help get out your feelings, in the hopes it will be of use to others.

And an update on that emotion is I'm feeling fresher, brighter and happier. I think I have understood (once again) that everything happens for a reason, and even the bad things are there to prompt you on, make you strive harder and be a better person/woman/daughter/friend/artist etc.

So now the all the 'life stuff' is outta the way onto the fun bit...picking giveaway winners for these random littlepackets lol

Here's all the names (well usernames lol) of everyone that entered, if you left me a comment on my last post then you are automatically in here. They then popped into this box:

Monday, 9 April 2012

I find with the small creative time I have I go around in circles of the different creative areas I like - like smash booking, art journaling, blogging & online art pursuits, book binding, zine making - all are obviously tailored around my love of journaling somehow but I do it in a 'fad' (as my mother would call it) kind of way.

I do the same with materials, one fad I love pencils, the next acrylics, the next paper for collage, the next metal for mixed media. Does anyone else do this? Is it just a way of 'creatives' or am I a lone fadder???

I'm liking smashing at the minute because it allows eitherminimum or maximum creative input. Some days when I just don't want to do anything I can just grab a glue stick and go, and the days when I do I can create some pages that have some thought behind them.

One kind of creative pursuit that I'm not seeming to be fadding with is video making, and as I've been smashing that's what my latest videos are on. The first is on the difference between smash booking, junk journaling and art journaling. Many people I think have begun to think of them all as the same thing, but to me they're very different and so this video shows the different kinds of books and journaling styles:

And then I've also done a smashing tutorial, which shows both the kinds of smash booking I mentioned above - the easy and the more thought through.

And finally I feel like doing a giveaway. And other than the fact that I really love my online art chums & can't find enough time lately to be fadding and being online too, I can't really find a reason for giving one, but hey it's like easter eggs right??? There doesn't need to be a reason to have that extra one right?? (yes I do have a little feeling of guilt this easter, how did you tell?).

The giveaway is not much, just 2 small packets that includes the above girls from the drawing girls tutorial post. I always like to give away something handmade, the same as I prefer receiving handmade, so I'm including one in each packet.

And you can ask what's inside the packets but I'm not going to tell you lol but if you know me and guess that some vintage ephemera would be in there then you'd be, well not wrong but that's all the clues you're getting lol just leave a comment if you wana play, and I'll pick two winners out of a hat in my next post.